NVIDIA nTeresting 22 January 2010

In this issue

• GF100 stories hit this week and the new architecture looks like a doozy.
• NVIDIA 3D Vision continues to pack the year-end trophy case with ‘Best of the Year' awards.
• Muvee Reveal uses the GPU to make video editing go faster.
• ION is a game changer for netbooks. Intel's new products should not change the impact ION has on netbooks.
• The automotive industry is sexying up the tech with dashboards driven by NVIDIA GPUs.

GF100 Architecture Details Announced

This week, there have been quite a number of stories about our upcoming architecture that makes the GF100 the world's fastest and most innovative consumer GPU ever built.

Benchmark Reviews offers their own take on the NVIDIA GF100 GPU Fermi Graphics Architecture

"The true potential of the GF100 is simply mind-boggling."

"All the more impressive is the eight times better geometric performance. More triangles per second means that game developers can use more complex models and the game worlds become more realistic. Perhaps we will see games with Hollywood-like quality in the near future."


"Personally I feel that SuperSonic Rocket Sled is the best demo NVIDIA has ever made. We've seen and done all the facial animations, dusks, dawns and what not. What you are seeing with the SuperSonic Sled demo is pretty amazing as the demo is very rich in objects, triangle count, quality textures, complex shaders, depth of field, but more so massive volumetric particles and liquid PhysX implementations and very rich geometric detail thanks to the hardware tessellation functionality embedded into the GF100 GPU. So from a technology point of view, this is the most advanced demo NVIDIA has ever designed."

"The setup with 4 engines, the new memory subsystem and all changes made to the "compute" are on paper the strengths of this architecture and, in absolute terms, significant advances in the evolution of the GPU."

Take a look at our new Supersonic Sled demo, which showcases dramatic uses of geometry, tessellation and PhysX! It is awesome.

Yes, we wish we had been able to launch products based on GF100 sooner, and we look forward to bringing them to market a little later in Q1. But, make no mistake about it--GF100 is the real game-changer. We've done more than just tack on DX11 to an existing architecture. GF100 represents almost five years of engineering development, and delivers a totally new innovative architecture that provides enormous strides in Geometry, Tessellation and Scalability. All combining to create the best GPU we have ever built.

Best. Product. 2009.

Legit Reviews, IGN, Yahoo, BenchmarkReviews and many others named NVIDIA 3D Vision to their "Best of 2009" list. Now comes iGizmo - the UK's biggest ‘online magazine'. NVIDIA scooped up the ‘Innovation of the Year 2009' Award for 3D Vision from iGizmo.

"The promise of 3D in the home finally became a reality this year with NVIDIA producing its own set of stereoscopic glasses. Our PCs were magically turned into full-on 3D sets with gaming, movies and photos getting the treatment. Its active shutter lenses give the clearest 3D yet, while remaining within reach of even the more modest pocket."

3D Vision Surround is an exciting new technology that will allow you to span games across three monitors in full HD stereoscopic 3D for an incredibly immersive gaming experience. They called NVIDIA 3D Vision surround a "Best of CES 2010" technology.

"Like our 2010 predictions, NVIDIA thinks the future is 3D too running three 3D screens for gaming is hugely convincing"

It's clear that 2010 is poised to be the year of 3D and NVIDIA is leading the charge to bring 3D to the computing masses. NVIDIA 3D Vision is the most compelling way for the consumer to get into 3D.

Video Editing, Fast and Easy

Muvee Reveal is a quick and easy way to create home videos with flare. Simply add your photos, video, choose your music, and select a style. Muvee Reveal creates personalized, automatically edited home movies that are perfectly synced to your music. All in a few clicks. Digital Photography Now knows why it does it so fast.

"As with all video production software, exporting the final movie can be time consuming, though a potential plus is that Reveal supports NVIDIA's CUDA acceleration technology, which claims to speed up video creation by as much as 8 times if your PC supports it."

We have a great roster of applications that run on the NVIDIA CUDA architecture that consumers love. In fact, video is the killer application for the GPU, and a number of new video applications are able to tap into the computing power of the GPU thanks to CUDA. GPU Computing is the use of the massively parallel architecture of the graphics processing unit (GPU) as a computational engine that can be programmed with high level languages and APIs. NVIDIA is leading this charge with support for DirectCompute, Open CL, and CUDA C.

The ION Bandwagon Is Crowded

Graphics performance hasn't really changed with Pine Trail. ION will continue to deliver 5-10x faster performance than Pine Trail systems. If you care about watching video on YouTube or Hulu, want to edit videos or convert them to your smartphone, or play mainstream games, ION netbooks and nettops are the best choice. Pine Trail provides a very limited experience. In fact, PineView is just more of the same. Which isn't good enough.

"Intel expects only a slight performance improvement by adding graphics to the new Pineview version of Atom, which is used in low-end laptops called netbooks."

But slightly better than very slow is still only-well, ‘slightly very slow'. Intel seems to be in denial about the importance of graphics and performance expectation of consumers.

"Meanwhile, Intel, which told Netbook News it would not compare or comment on other company's products, seems to believe that people buying a netbook wouldn't be buying an Atom based machine for its performance, nor to perform high end tasks."

Despite what Intel wants to force you to buy, people love having a netbook that has the same functionally as a PC, but it takes an NVIDIA ION GPU to make it happen.

"Its ION platform for netbooks transformed these once-underpowered devices into multimedia machines capable of playing high-def video. It's no coincidence that the Ion-powered HP Mini 311 has been the most popular review on our site for months, and ASUS, Lenovo, and Samsung are rolling out their own ION systems."

The netbook that Intel wants you to buy is a giant iPhone without the phone. An ION netbook is a full functioning PC in a tiny form factor. At CES, earlier this month, we showed the latest ION systems including netbooks from Samsung, HP, Lenovo, and ASUS. ION netbooks continue to set the standard for graphics on low-powered PCs.

GPUs Are On A Roll With The Automotive Industry

The Wall Street Journal thinks virtual dashboards may be the next big thing in luxury cars.

"Auto makers are starting to roll out a new generation of dashboard technology that substitutes touch-sensitive pads and displays for knobs and switches and videogame-style graphics for drab two-dimensional displays. Technology created to power games, mobile phones and computer displays is now being adapted-and often significantly improved-for those two-ton hand-held devices that come with four tires and leather seats."

At CES, NVIDIA and Audi announced that NVIDIA GPUs power the navigation and entertainment systems in most of Audi's 2010 vehicles worldwide, from sedans to SUVs. This includes the A6 sedan and Q5 and Q7 SUVs currently, and the A8 later this year. NVIDIA technology enables advanced visual capabilities such as full 3D navigation with advanced driver assistance and safety systems and a "dual zone" entertainment system that enables two videos to be shown simultaneously on different screens. In 2012, NVIDIA's next generation Tegra will drive the entertainment and navigation systems in all Audi and Volkswagen AG vehicles including Volkswagen, Bentley, and Lamborghini. I still have not talked my boss in to giving me a demo unit, but I am trying.